Author: Chris Liberti Grade Level: Grade 6 Course: General Science
Purpose of Unit
The purpose of this unit is to introduce the students to electricity and magnetism and to show the relations between them. In order to do this some background information about atomic theory will have to be given as well as information on how electricity ‘flows’. During this unit students will explore the laws of magnetism, as well as create an electromagnet and small DC motor, among other projects and exercises. In addition to the content, students will be learning how to apply logic and reasoning, skills which will permeate far beyond the classroom
The GSE’s related to this lesson focus on forces and their interactions. Through hands on activities the students will see that forces are pushes and pulls (PS 3 8b), that forces are responsible for changes in direction and speed (Ps 3 8c) and that magnets and electric currents can act on each other (PS 3 8d). Additionally students will spend a large amount of time working like members of the scientific world, taking observations and forming conclusions. A large portion of the Unit is Inquiry based as per the National Science Standards.
Learning Performances and Standards
PS 3 (5-6)
Students demonstrate an understanding of force by....
8b recognizing that a force is a
push or a pull. This particular standard is fairly straightforward. Students need to recognize that a force acts to push or pull an object. Before this point students were defiantly familiar with the idea of forces, as all children have pushed and pulled something and observed it move – but they have likely never qualified this observation into scientific terms.
Possible misconceptions:
Objects just move
There is only one force at a time
8c explaining that changes in
speed or direction of motion
are caused by forces. Students need to eventually understand that forces are constantly acting on all objects around us, regardless of the objects motion. In order to set students up to learn this in later grades, students need to recognize that forces can interact with each other to change the speed and direction of an object. Simple pushes and pulls are responsible for many things from you on the swing all the way up to the motor in your parent’s car.
Possible misconceptions:
Once an object is moving, it will stop when it runs out of speed
Some things are fast
Other things are slow
No notion of direction
8d showing that electric
currents and magnets can exert
a force on each other. This is likely the newest concept to students. Electromagnets and electric generation play a huge role in our everyday life in modern America, and eventually we want students to understand this. At this level we want to introduce students to these ideas in order to prepare them to learn the concepts more fully in higher level classes. Students need to understand that electrons are the cause of both electric flow and magnetism – and that this is the important relationship among electric current and magnetic forces. By beginning to understand this concept, students can be introduced to the concepts of electromagnets and motors/generators
Possible Misconceptions
Only magnets are magnetic
You can’t make new magnets
You cannot turn magnetic properties on and off.
Motors and generators are magical devices
Outline, Concept Map, or other Graphical Representation of the Concepts Addressed in the Unit
In my views on education, assessment is an integral part of the process, however not in the traditional sense. After all, without assessing students you may as well preach to an empty room, as you have no idea what the students are understanding and/or the misconceptions they are having. On the same accord traditional paper and pencil class long exams are stressful and my not accurately show what a student actually knows. For this reason there is a variety of assessment strategies, mostly formative and informal, with formal, more sumative end of unit test at the end (although even this could be used in a formative manor if the students anonymously are not at the targets i have set for them).
Every lesson includes some sort of informal assessment, either through my observations, or written, usually in the form of a science starter. This will allow me to constantly gauge student accplisments and adjust the speed of my lessons as a result of student nderstanding. Persoanlly i know that this is very important as I have a feeling that i tend to overplan and pace my lessons a bit fast. However it is better to be able to slow lessons and skip over some of the less importnat information than to not have enough material to fill the class/unit.
At the approxiamate midpoint of the unit the students will take a formal paper and pencil quiz, which will count as a grade, although it will serve a formative purpose in telling me if i should move forward or review a bit more.
The end of the unit will feature a formal group lab report. In an attempt to familiarize students with formal lab reports without overwhelming them I will have the assignment such that all students will be witting there own conclusion, but they will each have another portion (procedure and materials/introduction/etc.) to write for the group. This will be another form of sumative assessment that will allow students to show understanding in a different way.
The final assessment will be a traditional written test, as described above.
Rationale
This Unit represents a unique challenge. Every student has played with magnets before – there are going to be few surprises along the way, beyond that, little in the GSE’s is directly about this topic, but it does interface with a few and is part of the curriculum at the middle school. Magnets and motors are taught more in the elementary and high schools, but the focus in the middle level is a bit more on electric flow creating magnetic force and electromagnets. As well as explaining these phenomena as forces and beginning to understand what forces are.
With all of this in mind I determined that this would be a perfect unit to reinforce to students other, less content oriented, aspects of science and science learning. In this lesson we focus a lot on basic science (and life) skills such as making observations, justifying responses, and planning experiments. Furthermore this unit is designed to help the students learn to become active readers and to take control of their own learning, through the use of teacher modeled reading strategies and the unit long KWL, reinforcing to students that learning is a never ending process.
This unit starts of attempting to show students that even everyday items like magnets have important characteristics. Once students realize that they don’t understand, they are beginning to have a desire to learn. The unit is designed to help students understand that complex devices (electric motors) are grounded in simple principles. Students go from playing with magnets to building simple motors, something that should excite most of them.
Additionally the unit is set up to help all students achieve, as the material is presented multiple times in multiple modalities. Assessment is also in a variety of informal, and a few informal methods, allowing all students the opportunity to show understanding in a variety of ways.
Magnets and Motors - Magic or Science?
Author: Chris Liberti
Grade Level: Grade 6
Course: General Science
Purpose of Unit
The purpose of this unit is to introduce the students to electricity and magnetism and to show the relations between them. In order to do this some background information about atomic theory will have to be given as well as information on how electricity ‘flows’. During this unit students will explore the laws of magnetism, as well as create an electromagnet and small DC motor, among other projects and exercises. In addition to the content, students will be learning how to apply logic and reasoning, skills which will permeate far beyond the classroomThe GSE’s related to this lesson focus on forces and their interactions. Through hands on activities the students will see that forces are pushes and pulls (PS 3 8b), that forces are responsible for changes in direction and speed (Ps 3 8c) and that magnets and electric currents can act on each other (PS 3 8d). Additionally students will spend a large amount of time working like members of the scientific world, taking observations and forming conclusions. A large portion of the Unit is Inquiry based as per the National Science Standards.
Learning Performances and Standards
PS 3 (5-6)
Students demonstrate an understanding of force by....
8b recognizing that a force is a
push or a pull.
This particular standard is fairly straightforward. Students need to recognize that a force acts to push or pull an object. Before this point students were defiantly familiar with the idea of forces, as all children have pushed and pulled something and observed it move – but they have likely never qualified this observation into scientific terms.
Possible misconceptions:
8c explaining that changes in
speed or direction of motion
are caused by forces.
Students need to eventually understand that forces are constantly acting on all objects around us, regardless of the objects motion. In order to set students up to learn this in later grades, students need to recognize that forces can interact with each other to change the speed and direction of an object. Simple pushes and pulls are responsible for many things from you on the swing all the way up to the motor in your parent’s car.
Possible misconceptions:
8d showing that electric
currents and magnets can exert
a force on each other.
This is likely the newest concept to students. Electromagnets and electric generation play a huge role in our everyday life in modern America, and eventually we want students to understand this. At this level we want to introduce students to these ideas in order to prepare them to learn the concepts more fully in higher level classes. Students need to understand that electrons are the cause of both electric flow and magnetism – and that this is the important relationship among electric current and magnetic forces. By beginning to understand this concept, students can be introduced to the concepts of electromagnets and motors/generators
Possible Misconceptions
Outline, Concept Map, or other Graphical Representation of the Concepts Addressed in the Unit
ChrisL - Concept map of topicsLesson Sequence
ChrisL - Introduction to MagnetsChrisL - Discussion of discoveries and findings
ChrisL - Guided reading about magnets
ChrisL - Magnetic Field Image Activity
ChrisL - The Earth as a Magnet
ChrisL - Review game day
ChrisL - Build a compass
ChrisL - Vocab and atomic model?
ChrisL - What else creates magnetic fields?
ChrisL - Magnets Jigsaw activity
ChrisL - Intro to motors
ChrisL - So thats how motors work? Explanation and Guided Reading
ChrisL - Independent Lab introduction
ChrisL - Independent Lab continuation
ChrisL - Electrical Generation
ChrisL - Unit Review
ChrisL - Unit Test
ChrisL - //So thats how magnets work through Unit test// overview
Assessment Plan
In my views on education, assessment is an integral part of the process, however not in the traditional sense. After all, without assessing students you may as well preach to an empty room, as you have no idea what the students are understanding and/or the misconceptions they are having. On the same accord traditional paper and pencil class long exams are stressful and my not accurately show what a student actually knows. For this reason there is a variety of assessment strategies, mostly formative and informal, with formal, more sumative end of unit test at the end (although even this could be used in a formative manor if the students anonymously are not at the targets i have set for them).Every lesson includes some sort of informal assessment, either through my observations, or written, usually in the form of a science starter. This will allow me to constantly gauge student accplisments and adjust the speed of my lessons as a result of student nderstanding. Persoanlly i know that this is very important as I have a feeling that i tend to overplan and pace my lessons a bit fast. However it is better to be able to slow lessons and skip over some of the less importnat information than to not have enough material to fill the class/unit.
At the approxiamate midpoint of the unit the students will take a formal paper and pencil quiz, which will count as a grade, although it will serve a formative purpose in telling me if i should move forward or review a bit more.
The end of the unit will feature a formal group lab report. In an attempt to familiarize students with formal lab reports without overwhelming them I will have the assignment such that all students will be witting there own conclusion, but they will each have another portion (procedure and materials/introduction/etc.) to write for the group. This will be another form of sumative assessment that will allow students to show understanding in a different way.
The final assessment will be a traditional written test, as described above.
Rationale
This Unit represents a unique challenge. Every student has played with magnets before – there are going to be few surprises along the way, beyond that, little in the GSE’s is directly about this topic, but it does interface with a few and is part of the curriculum at the middle school. Magnets and motors are taught more in the elementary and high schools, but the focus in the middle level is a bit more on electric flow creating magnetic force and electromagnets. As well as explaining these phenomena as forces and beginning to understand what forces are.With all of this in mind I determined that this would be a perfect unit to reinforce to students other, less content oriented, aspects of science and science learning. In this lesson we focus a lot on basic science (and life) skills such as making observations, justifying responses, and planning experiments. Furthermore this unit is designed to help the students learn to become active readers and to take control of their own learning, through the use of teacher modeled reading strategies and the unit long KWL, reinforcing to students that learning is a never ending process.
This unit starts of attempting to show students that even everyday items like magnets have important characteristics. Once students realize that they don’t understand, they are beginning to have a desire to learn. The unit is designed to help students understand that complex devices (electric motors) are grounded in simple principles. Students go from playing with magnets to building simple motors, something that should excite most of them.
Additionally the unit is set up to help all students achieve, as the material is presented multiple times in multiple modalities. Assessment is also in a variety of informal, and a few informal methods, allowing all students the opportunity to show understanding in a variety of ways.
EDC 430 F08 Unit Plan Eval - Chris L